Adorable actress Michelle Williams is Elle magazine's December cover star and the subject of a fashion spread and rare interview to promote her starring role in upcoming Marilyn Monroe biopic 'My Week With Marilyn'.

In it, the two-time Oscar nominee speaks about her hopes and fears for the film, 'I've never been so hanging on a cliff waiting to hear what people think of a movie'; and the agonising responsibility of portraying such an idol. 'I think after the second day, I told them they had to take away my passport because I was a flight risk'.

But the most poignant part of the interview comes long after the movie talk when the fiercely private star - whose personal life was made so public following the sudden death of her ex-partner, and father of her six-year-old daughter Matilda, Heath Ledger in 2008 - talks about her signature cropped hairstyle:

'What Matilda would love is for her mum to grow out the cropped hair, though that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

'I've really grown into it - I feel like myself with short hair. And it's been a really long time since I had long hair, five years,' she explains.

'Of course, the only people who like it are gay men and my girlfriends. Straight men across the board are not into this hair!'

'I cut it for the one straight man who has ever liked short hair and I wear it in memorial of somebody who really loved it.'